For prominent and mostly-seen-as-neutral English-language sources, they seem to only selectively block specific articles, or temporarily block them entirely only around sensitive events or anniversaries where they're worried about what might be published. The English Wikipedia is generally treated like that: you can't read its articles on the Cultural Revolution or Tiananmen Square, but you can read articles that don't trigger a sensitive-topic block. My dad spent some time in China on work and was also able to watch the BBC News most of the time, except that a handful of stories were abruptly cut out, and the entire channel was occasionally unavailable around sensitive dates.
